Anti-Rape Ads Loud And Clear / Public service campaign focuses on perpetrator

Catherine Bowman, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, September 24, 1997

1997-09-24 04:00:00 PDT REGION -- The ads are blunt, and so is the message: This is not an invitation to rape me.

A group of 78 rape crisis centers unveiled a statewide media campaign yesterday, the first of its kind in California. Instead of focusing on the victim, the ads target the perpetrator -- and misconceptions about rape.

The public service spots have been running for a year in the Los Angeles area. In one, a young couple passionately kiss against the wall of a bare room. In another, a woman at a cocktail party gives a man a napkin with her phone number scribbled on it. In a third, a professional woman is in an elevator, glancing through a file and wearing a blouse unbuttoned to show a glimpse of her breasts.

Each ad ends with the same message: This is not an invitation to rape me.

"We're being confrontive, provocative, because there's a silence about acquaintance rape," said Patti Giggans, executive director of the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women. "What's different about this campaign is that we're using some of the same images that are often out there in advertising -- the traditional seductive and sexy images. What we're saying is because a woman or a girl might dress in a short skirt, wear a halter, show a belly, show cleavage, that is not an invitation to rape."

"It's about time we have a campaign that puts the focus where the real problem is," McGuire said. "It's in the home, and it's our neighbors and friends that are doing it."

Giggans said the in-your-face approach is designed to grab people's attention and get them to look at their attitudes and behavior.

"We're prepared to get some flak," she said. "This is not a politically correct campaign."

Although the Los Angeles campaign has been a success, Giggans said, a few television stations refused to run the public service announcements. Organizers acknowledge that they have no control over when the spots will run, noting that in Los Angeles they are often aired late at night or in the wee hours of the morning.

Full-page ads have already begun to appear in newspapers, as well as in magazines such as TV Guide and Time. The signature image of the campaign is called "The Kiss" -- a black-and-white close-up of a couple kissing with the campaign slogan printed near the woman's mouth.

The campaign is the brainchild of Charles Hall, a New York advertising executive whose friend was nearly raped by a man she met at his birthday party. Hall printed up his own stickers and circulated them before the campaign was picked up by the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women.

Giggans said the Los Angeles commission has given out more than 1,500 rape awareness kits and has seen a 20 percent increase in calls from people wanting to help.

The kit, now available at rape crisis centers statewide, includes stickers and a toll-free number: (888) 661-7273.